weekly Meeting - Mark Connelly (Cotswold Convservation Board)

Wed, Jul 12th 2017 at 8:00 pm - 10:30 pm

Friend: John Barnes
VOT: Roger Barrett


Mark Connelly - Cotswold Conservation Board

Land Management Officer, Mark Connelley, began by comparing the functions of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty with National Parks. In fact AONB’s are a sister to NP’s, and together they cover 25% of the countryside. There are 38 AONB’s and 15 NP’s in England and Wales, their boundaries being defined by the landscape.  The main difference is that whilst NP’s have a secondary purpose of recreation, the sole purpose of AONB’s is to conserve and enhance the natural beauty and in so-doing, seek to foster economic and social well-being.

A world famous brand, the Cotswolds is the largest of the AONB’s, covering 790 square miles.  Its AONB designation is worth £337m of public funding per annum, supporting 9,720 jobs and with 23 million visitors, tourism is worth £1bn per annum to the area.

Mark described the staffing structure and financial aspects of the Conservation Board in some detail, but the significance of volunteer help was very clear to see, with wardens providing 48,000 free man hours per annum, for guided walks and work parties etc. etc.
He then touched on their rural skills projects, such as hedge-laying, ploughing and dry stone walling.  Last year they ran 71 courses, involving 551 participants.  Mark then talked in more detail about a programme to save and extend the wild flower meadows.  A seed harvester is used to recreate wild flower meadows in areas of unimproved limestone grassland.  The seeds harvested from one hectare of existing wild flower meadow are spread over three new hectares, and to date over 1000 hectares of meadows have been reclaimed in this way.

Other topics briefly mentioned were Bathscapes and Dark Skies and with such a broad range of projects, we are grateful to Mark for his informative balance of detail together with a broad overview of the Board’s work in the time available.

Roger Barrett

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